'Airborne surveillance needs to be strengthened'

India has a gap in surveillance, and there is a need to bridge this gap. That is one of the technologies that India needs to strengthen. “There is a need to strengthen the airborne surveillance in particular,” said V K Saraswat, scientific adviser to Defence Minister and secretary - defence R&D and DG R&D.

In his address at a convention on ‘The Frontiers of Aeronautical Technologies’, organised by the Aeronautical Society of India here on Sunday, he said India has remote sensing satellites that have the capability of intelligence gathering. But, a lot more needs to be done.

India’s unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Nishant and Lakshya have now been followed by Rustom which has more capabilities than it’s predecessors, he said.

 

He said space-based sensors are a must for tracking and detection of movements of enemies. Unless it has space-based sensors, India would not be able to make its ballistic missile defence system a potent weapon, the scientist said. India is launching a major programme for surveillance, particularly space-based, in terms of electro-optical payload and synthetic aperture radar. “So, unless we prepare ourselves for future space-based systems, security is going to be a major issue,” he said.

Meanwhile, India is in the process of deploying aerostats (blimps) and is buying more Israeli EL/M-2083 Aerostat radars. Both India and Pakistan are using radar aerostats (blimps) to fill in the many gaps in the radar coverage of their mutual border. India already has two EL/M-2083s. The United States is providing aerostats to Pakistan. India bought its first EL/M-2083s three years ago, and is planning to deploy a total of six.

Aerostat systems use a 100-250 foot long, helium filled, unmanned blimp equipped with radar and other sensors. An aerostat is designed to always turn into the wind and stay in the same place. An aerostat is unpowered, and secured by a cable that can keep the aerostat in position at its maximum altitude of 15,000 feet. India is also in the process of developing phased array radars using ultra high frequencies (UHF) and higher band.

Meanwhile, India is developing a sub-sonic 1,000-km range cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’ which can be used for a “variety of applications”, Saraswat said. The 1000-kg “missile is getting into some shape,” he added. He also said the flight-trial of air-to-air missile ‘Astra’, with a range of 45 to 100 km, could be expected in future.

He said India’s armed forces are looking for long duration loitering missiles which can enter “enemy territory”, search targets such as radars, concentration of assets and “a variety of movements of enemy”, “home-on” the targets and “bang” them. “We need to develop (loitering missiles),” he said. Saraswat made a strong push for deploying space-based sensors to keep tab on “adversaries” and gather intelligence via-a-vis defence surveillance.